Dev Summary March 20th through March 26th

Another week of Dev posts! Full article can be found here. Here are the highlights:

Originally Posted by MMO-Champion

Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller

Stat Distribution on Rakata has been updated in patch 1.2

If you haven't changed the mods in your gear it will automatically update when 1.2 goes live.

Any mod changes you made to your gear will not change when 1.2 goes live.

If say a piece of gear has two mods and you changed one of them, the one you did not change will update when 1.2 goes live.

If you restore the original mod into your gear before 1.2, then it will update when 1.2 goes live.

When creating implants you will still have the ability to crit.

The goal of the Devs is to make the choice of what color crystal you use be independent of what stats you want (basically you should be able to get any color with any type of stat).

+41 stat color crystals of every color (excluding white) will be available when 1.2 goes live.

White color crystals will no longer be available when 1.2 goes live.

There is no plan to add a new tier of color crystals in the near to mid future.

Rating 22/Level 49 Augments will be the top level of augment for the foreseeable future.

They are still tweaking how rewards based on participation in warzones work on the Test Server.

Medpac usage is being restricted because they should not be as important as character abilities and should not be part of the normal rotation.

will be adding regular flushing of the combat log buffer to disk in the future so you don't have to employ the enable/disable log workaround anymore.

The reason for the "nerfs" to healing is to increase the challenge of top tier encounters and class to class and role to role balance.

You will not be able to RE orange quest items.

In the mid-term (e.g. past Game Update 1.2), we are planning on adding means to the game that allow you to add augment slots to equipment you already have.

Systems Designer David Hunt

There's an issue that's causing some items to appear blank. The actual Campaign boots will have full stats and mods.

Some high end armorings will be bound to slot (for example some you would only be able to move from a chest to a chest).

Armorings of level 61 or above (new in 1.2) have the set bonus on the armoring.

Items of level 58 or below (existed before 1.2) have the set bonus on the item, not the armoring.

In the new area, Black Hole Commendations are only given out on a single weekly quest. If they are showing up other places that is a bug.

Unlike Champion gear, Battlemaster gear does have stat changes. All current and future (1.2+) tier PvP gear is going through a stat transition to give it more expertise. This means you will see many more expertise versions of Mods and Enhancements instead of primarily on the base mod (Armoring/Hilt/Barrel).

Senior Game Designer William Wallace... I will not make a Braveheart joke...

The class buff unlocks occur when a character finishes Chapter 2. At that point, that character's class buff is unlocked for all characters of his legacy.

Each class' buff applies all of your unlocked class buffs with a single click. It's not 4 buttons you have to keep on your quickbar. One click, all the buffs.

To get the full set of buffs, you only need to unlock 4 classes. Unlocking the buff for Agent and Smuggler still only nets you a single buff effect, so you can't stack their +Crit bonuses together. (Because that might be a wee bit overpowered. Maybe.)

The reason for the "nerfs" to healing is to increase the challenge of top tier encounters.

lack of imagination.

Well this is actually a needed design. I wouldn't say it was a 'lack of imagination' but moreso something that was necessary. Face it. Healing was pretty easy and with current game design- encounters can't be extremely varying. We lack any sort of boss mod like DBM so they can't make bosses have 100 different things to monitor. Instead they make healing a little more difficult (which was needed because it was easy).

Healers really where to powerful in both OPs and WZs. I understand people don't like nerfs, but healers needed to be brought back in line with other classes. Yes, I play a healer in WZs as well as DPS.

Buy them now while you still can. As of 1.2 they will no longer be able to be bought, nor will a crafted pattern be added to the game for the near term, although they have not stated that they will never be available again.